xpress it! / hot girl summer, day 1

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d8 : vera jeon 🎀 sucy
Merchant

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am i not the loving kind?

xpress it! / hot girl summer, day 1 Jun 26, 2024 18:49:26 GMT -5

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Post by d8 : vera jeon 🎀 sucy on Jun 26, 2024 18:49:26 GMT -5

I make my way to the giant canvas eventually, mostly because I feel like I have to. It intimidates me nearly as much as the other tributes do. I'm not an artist! I don't paint or draw! My handwriting isn't even anything cute or special. I stand in front of it, arms crossed over my chest, and scowl. I don't get art. I don't care to try and get it either, and I'm definitely not going to have my third eye opened in the middle of the Hunger Games.

I'll have to write something. But what? Something about Marceline, maybe. Or, I dunno, a message to my family that are still alive. Something cheeky? Something that'll suck up to the Capitol? A big thank you very much to Atticus Manor? Once I get thinking about it, there are actually a lot of good options. I sigh and get out the big stylus. Maybe if I just start, I'll know what to write.

Before I can start, I see that I've been joined by Nori and Lucia at some point. We'd been split up, looking around the areas branching off the Cornucopia while we still had some light. Ripred, was I seriously that far off in my own world? Vera, I tell myself, that is not acceptable. If they could sneak up on me, then anybody could. When I turn to face them I raise an eyebrow and stretch out my arms to shake my comically big pen at them.

"Either of you know what you wanna put up there yet? Right now I'm thinking about telling them to rig my younger sister in next year and signing it xoxo, Vera, but I think my family would find that in bad taste." Not true, because I think two daughters is two to many for one family to donate to the carnage. "I really don't know."

[kaitlin]

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nori halliday 🌻 d11a [Bella]
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last seen Jun 29, 2024 13:28:00 GMT -5

xpress it! / hot girl summer, day 1 Jun 28, 2024 18:03:37 GMT -5

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Post by nori halliday 🌻 d11a [Bella] on Jun 28, 2024 18:03:37 GMT -5

”Nuh-uh,” I say decisively, shaking my head at Vera’s suggestion that she tempt the Gamemakers with another game of “rig the reaping”. ”If you’re gonna curse your sister, do it somewhere far away from me. That’s bad juju.” I cross myself with that hand thing religious people do, half-joking, and smirk back at Vera.

What a sad setup this is, I think, looking around at the cans of paint in the sand, the bikes towing their sparkly trailers, the flickering neon sign declaring the place’s supposed name. Black Rock Shitty, more like. And now they want us to paint for them.

It almost feels like an insult, them taking our lives and freedom away, then handing us some art supplies. Like: come on! Pour your heart out on the canvas, before it literally gets ripped out of your chest! Art is supposed to be personal, every creation unique. Somehow I just can’t picture myself drawing anything for anyone here to look at. So instead I just stare up at the blank canvas, all quiet.

On Sundays, my mother used to paint sunsets just like this one. She’d make the paints from rocks and different kinds of flowers, which she dried, powdered, and mixed with honey or glycerin to make a kind of paste. She only made them for herself, never showing a single soul. When I asked her why, she’d say, “These ones are just practice. One day, when l make one that’s perfect, then maybe I’ll show somebody.”

It makes me wonder what she meant by perfect–how would she know when she got it just right? When the sunset on the canvas was a perfect mirror image of the one she saw with her own eyes? Some kind of feeling? Maybe she would just know.

Me, I’m not sure. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to make a real picture of what our eyes see. Now that I’m far from home, when I try to bring up a mental picture of Ezra, Tuck, Remi, Nana, I can barely remember the lines of their faces. If I could draw them, I would. But I’ve never had the talent for that sort of thing. Nothing is as real as being there in the moment with them.

And standing here, with Lucia and Vera, our little group I like more every minute, feeling invincible with our packs full of supplies and our bellies full of festival food, our three shadows growing long against the sunset: will I ever be able to draw up this moment again? In memory, or on paper? In a song, like my daddy? Will I be able to call it back when I want to remember?

I don’t know. I guess life is like that. Blink, and you’ll miss it. Sand through your fingers.

Nothing we put on that canvas will keep us from being erased, I think. Doesn’t matter how big it is.

But I know I’ve been standing here brooding for a few minutes, so I shrug and say, “I dunno. I’m always so intimidated by blank slates. Like there’s just so much more room to mess it up.” I let out a big sigh. ”Ah, well. Screw it. You only live once.”

I step forward and start doodling, the pen releasing an easy stream of rainbow colors. ”Let’s draw…” I say thoughtfully, ”what our hearts most desire. For me, it’s a big juicy peach at the end of summer.” When I finish the simple shape, an oblong circle with a stem, which could be any fruit, really, I turn back to Vera and Lucia, inviting them to join with a smile that suddenly feels shy. ”Maybe something that reminds you of home?”

[kaitlin]

Last Edit: Jun 28, 2024 18:04:01 GMT -5 by nori halliday 🌻 d11a [Bella]

hot girl summer

[dars]

lucia valentine [d8] 🐞 tris
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xpress it! / hot girl summer, day 1 Jun 28, 2024 22:50:52 GMT -5

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Post by lucia valentine [d8] 🐞 tris on Jun 28, 2024 22:50:52 GMT -5

Where her friends go, she follows. The strap of her bag is secured around her torso, and her horde of weapons has been stashed away in a makeshift camp near the cornucopia. On her person, she has an axe strapped to her waist. But her focus is on the large stylus in her hands, not quite ready or willing to give in to the paranoia that she knows will eventually win. For the time being, she and her alliance can continue to make light of the situation they're in.

They walk away from the outline of a boy blown to bits, and the smell of the burnt corpse doesn't reach this far from the stage. She watches the rainbow ink move through the stylus as she moves, a whirlpool of colors. She stares up at the massive canvas, a white expanse somehow glaring down at them. "I'm always so intimidated by blank slates," Nori confesses, and Lucia frees a hand to place it on the other girl's shoulder. It comes naturally, a calming stroke of her thumb, the kind of action she would make to comfort her twin sister, Sylvia.

"It's just a big drawing pad in desert where everything is designed to kill us." Lucia glares back up at the canvas, a smile on her lips as she moves her hand away and crosses her arms over her chest, cradling the stylus. "Don't let it bother you. Say the word, and I'm sure Vera and I could knock it over." Speaking of her district partner, Lucia frowns when the girl jokes about writing down a request to rig her little sister into the next Reaping, but she tries to remind herself that everyone processes humor in a different way. Who is she to say Vera doesn't miss her family as much as she does? Love never has the same face twice.

It will always appear differently.

Ever the patient one, Lucia listens to her allies muse amongst each other, and she smiles when Nori echoes her unspoken sentiment and teasingly scolds Vera for her joke. After a few moments of thought, the girl from Eleven comes to a conclusion. "Let's draw what our hearts most desire." This appeals to Lucia, although she agrees with Vera that her own artistic skills aren't up to snuff, either. Sylvia had always been the creative one, Lucia is better with moving parts and acting in the moment. She watches as Nori approaches the pad and begins to draw a large, juicy pear, in a cute style. "Aw, I love it."

Craving fresh fruit after the day they've had is a fair ask, but Lucia's mind processes the prompt a little more somberly. Unable to draw anything substantial, she makes a curving swoop and a flourish until she's left a musical note scrawled just below Nori's peach. It only feels fair to explain. "I miss hearing my sister sing. I miss home." She offers another warm expression to the two girls, her eyes meeting Nori's. The moment doesn't need to stay sad. "Who doesn't like fresh peaches and good music? We have good taste."

Lucia turns her attention to Vera, giving the girl an encouraging nod to approach the canvas. "Don't take it too seriously," she suggests kindly, a playful twinkle in her eyes. "And if the drawing really embarrasses you, we'll just tell all the other tributes it was my doodle. Easy as that."

[kaitlin]

all my girls got their lace and their crimes.